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PAPERS 

of the 

WAYNE. COUNTY, IND.. 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

Volume I. -'dumber 1 



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The Naming 
of Indiana 

By Cyrus W. Hodgin 




PAPERS 

OF THE 

WAYNE COUNTY, INDIANA, 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

Vol. I.— No. i. 



THE NAMING OF 
INDIANA 



CYRUS W. HODGIN 





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THE NAMING OF INDIANA 



PREVIOUS to the opening of the nineteenth 
century, the present State of Indiana had no 
history except what it had in common with the 
surrounding territory. Her geological development, 
and the other phases of her natural history, did not 
materially differ from those of Ohio, Michigan and 
Illinois. Substantially the same conditions produced 
the soil and the native vegetable and animal life of 
them all. 

When she was occupied by the Mound Builders 
and the Indians, there were, so far as we can tell, no 
boundaries to separate her from the adjacent lands. 
Under the rule of the French, she was sometimes 
considered a part of New France (Canada), sometimes 
of Louisiana. On falling into the hands of the Eng- 
lish, after the French and Indian War, there were no 
marks to distinguish her from the rest of the English 
claims in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, of which 
she formed a part. After the famous expedition of 
George Rogers Clark, as a result of which she fell 
under control of Virginia, she was, for a time, only 



4 The Naming of Indiana 4 

part of a county of that proud Commonwealth. This 
county was called Illinois county. After her transfer 
by Virginia to the United States, she was included in 
the Northwest Territory, and still had no separate 
name or organization. 

It was not until the year 1800 that she was chris- 
tened with her present name; and when she did receive 
it, she was obliged to share it in common with Mich- 
igan until 1805, and with Illinois until 1809. Besides, 
when at last she had a name all to herself, it was a 
second-hand one, having been borne by one of her 
eastern sisters from about 1768 to 1798, a period of 
thirty years. How the name was obtained and finally 
lost by its original bearer is substantially as follows : 

At the close of the French and Indian War, in 
1763, the French having been forced from the Ohio 
Valley, a Philadelphia trading company was organized 
to monopolize the Indian trade of that region. This 
company consisted of twenty-five members, amongst 
whom George Morgan seems to have been the most 
active and prominent. As there was no other busi- 
ness at that time equally remunerative, these gentle- 
men invested a large amount of money in European 
goods for this trade, and, in the care of agents, a large 
quantity of them was sent down the Ohio Valley to be 
exchanged for furs and such other products of the 
chase as the Indians were accustomed to bring to the 
trading posts. 



5 The Naming of Indiana 5 

In order to understand fully the outcome of this 
venture, and its relation to the subject in hand, it is 
necessary to know a little of Indian history. At the 
time when the English began occupying the Atlantic 
seaboard of what is now the United States, there dwelt 
in the present State of New York, to the south of 
trakes Ontario and Erie, the powerful and progressive 
tribes known as the Iroquois. By forming a confed- 
eracy, these five or six tribes had abolished that de- 
structive competition among themselves which has 
always been a bar to the progress of civilization, and, 
as a consequence of their union, were able to live a 
settled life. At the time when the permanent Euro- 
pean occupation of the United States began, they 
had a strong and well disciplined army ; they built 
houses, cultivated the fields, planted orchards, engaged 
in trade, and were developing some of the arts of 
civilized life and some of the pride and ambition which 
accompany the awakening of a national spirit. Like 
the early Romans, they were reaching out a conquer- 
ing hand in every direction. They had subjugated 
the tribes of Canada to the north of Lakes Ontario 
and Erie, and also those of eastern Ohio, western 
Pennsylvania, and to the southward as far as Tennes- 
see and North Carolina. They treated the conquered 
people as tributaries, and claimed their lands as their 
own by the same title as did their more highly civilized 
white brethren of the Old World, the right of conquest. 



6 The Naming of Indiana 6 

With these facts of Indian history in mind, let 
us now turn our attention again to the agents of the 
Philadelphia trading company, mentioned above. 

In the fall of the year 1763, some Indians of the 
Shawnee and other tribes, who were tributary to the 
Iroquois Confederacy, pounced upon the traders on 
the Ohio River, at a point below the present site of 
Wheeling, and, overpowering them, seized the goods 
and appropriated them to their own use. The Phila- 
delphia company, on learning that their agents had 
been plundered, made complaint to the chiefs of the 
Six Nations, and demanded pay for their loss. These 
dusky Romans of the New World, like the Romans 
of old, feeling themselves responsible for the conduct 
of their subjects, admitted the justice of the claim ; 
but as the plundered property was valued at nearly 
half a million dollars, the treasury of the confederacy 
did not contain sufficient cash to liquidate the debt. 
But if they had no money, they did claim a large 
amount of land, and five years later, in 1768, when 
making a boundary treaty with the English, the Six 
Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy expressly reserved 
for the Philadelphia company a tract of nearly 5,000 
square miles lying south of the Ohio River and east of 
the Great Kanawha. It included all of six, and a 
large part of five other counties within the present 
State of West Virginia. It was equal in extent to the 
State of Connecticut, more than twice that of Delaware, 



7 The Naming of Indiana 7 

and about four times that of Rhode Island. The com- 
pany accepted the land in payment of their claim, and 
received a deed, prepared in due form, and signed by 
the six chiefs of the confederacy, and witnessed by the 
Governor and Chief Justice of New Jersey, and by 
several other gentlemen, representing Connecticut, 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York and the English 
Crown. 

This princely domain must needs have a name. 
The proprietors were sufiSciently scholarly to know 
how the names of States and countries were frequently 
made up. They had a number of examples in the 
Old World ; as Wallachia, the land of the Wallachs ; 
Bulgaria, the land of the Bulgars, or Volgars ; Suabia, 
the land of the Suevi ; Andalusia, or Vandalusia, the 
land of the Vandals, etc. But nearer home they had 
Virginia, the land of the Virgin (Queen Elizabeth); 
Pennsylvania, Penn's Woodland; Georgia, the land 
of King George ; Carolina, the land of Carolus, or 
Charles (II); Louisiana, the land of Louis (XIV of 
France), and so on through a long list. What more 
natural than that the proprietors should add the ter- 
mination a, signifying la7id, to Indiayi, the name of the 
people from whom the land was obtained, and thus 
make up the really euphonious name Indiana ? This 
was done and the name applied. 

But now another bit of history must be traced in 
order to learn how the name came to be dropped from 



8 The Naming of Indiana 8 

its original possessor and applied to the present State 
of Indiana. 

In 1776 this Indian land was transferred to a new 
company, known as the "Indiana Land Company," 
and was then offered for sale ; but as the land lay 
within the existing limits of Virginia, she claimed it 
as her own by right of her charter. All through the 
Revolutionary War, and for many years after, the con- 
troversy went on between Virginia and the Indiana 
Land Company. Settlers moved in, and the company 
demanded pay for the lands occupied by them ; but 
Virginia claimed jurisdiction over the settlers, and for- 
bade the sale of land by the Indiana proprietors. 

In 1779 the company petitioned Congress to inter- 
fere in its behalf, and such interference was attempted 
by a Congressional Committee in 1782. But Virginia 
continued obstinate, and as Congress was at that time 
operating under the Articles of Confederation, it had 
no power to compel a State to do anything. 

In 1790 the Indiana Company memorialized the 
Legislature of Virginia, as it had done before, insisting 
that if the State was determined to hold the land, it 
should not do so without compensating the company. 
The proposition was hotly debated in the Virginia 
Assembly. The proprietors showed that, besides the 
original cost of the land covered by the cost of the 
plundered goods, they had spent over $18,000 trying 
to perfect their title. When the matter was brought 



9 The Naming of Indiana 9 

to a vote there was a tie, but the casting vote of the 
Speaker decided the matter against the company. In 
1 79 1 another memorial was presented to the Virginia 
I^egislature, but so far as appears no action was taken 
on it. 

Before this time the Constitution of the United 
States had been adopted, and the Supreme Court estab- 
lished. The Indiana Company, despairing of justice 
at the hands of the Virginia Legislature, entered suit 
in 1792 in the Supreme Court of the United States 
against the Commonwealth of Virginia for the recovery 
of their property. The Attorney-General of Virginia 
was subpoenaed by the United States Marshal to appear 
before the Court on the 4th of August, 1793, to answer 
to the complaint of the Indiana Company. 

The sentiment of State rights, which so strongly 
prevailed in the earlier years of our national history, 
was perhaps more vigorously active in Virginia than 
anywhere else at the time, and the idea that a proud 
and sovereign State like the "Old Dominion" should 
be dragged before any tribunal outside of itself was 
exceedingly distasteful to her officers. Consequently, 
when the summons came for her to appear before the 
United States Supreme Court, she ignored it, declining 
to appear as defendant in the case of the Indiana Com- 
pany. Her Legislature adopted a resolution in De- 
cember, 1793, to the effect that she "is not bound and 
ought not to appear before the Supreme Federal Court. ' ' 



lo The Naming of Indiana lo 

She continued to refuse, and concentrated her efforts 
for securing an amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States, and it was successful, as is shown in 
the Eleventh Amendment, which reads : 

" The judicial power of the United States shall not 
be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity 
commenced or prosecuted against one of the United 
States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or 
subjects of any foreign State." 

This amendment received the sanction of both 
houses of Congress early in 1794, and was sent out to 
the States for ratification. In the meantime, at the 
session of the Supreme Court in August, 1796, the 
case of the Indiana Company was called again, but 
Virginia did not respond, and before it was again 
called three- fourths of the States had ratified the pro- 
posed amendment (in 1798), and the long-contested 
case disappeared from the docket, and, as a conse- 
quence, the Indiana Land Company lost its claim and 
itself disappeared from view. 

The land in question, having been absorbed by 
Virginia, had no further use for its separate name, 
and during the next two years the word Indiana ex- 
pressed only a reminiscence. In 1800, however, when 
Congress divided the Northwest Territory, and created 
the State of Ohio out of the eastern division, it took 
up the discarded name, Indiana, and applied it to the 
western division. It has ever since been retained by 



II The Naming of Indiana ii 

that portion which we " Hoosiers " affectionately re- 
gard as home. 

But how did this word ' ' Hoosier ' ' originate ? 

THE NICKNAME OF INDIANA. 

Since about the year 1830 Indiana has been famil- 
iarly known as the Hoosier State, and the people of 
the State have been called Hoosiers. A number of 
different explanations of the origin of the term have 
been given, but no one of them can be said to carry with 
it the element of certainty. Meredith Nicholson, in 
his admirable little volume, "The Hoosiers," has col- 
lected these together. Briefly, they are as follows : 

An Irishman employed in excavating the canal 
around the falls at Louisville, who declared, after a 
fight in which he had vanquished several fellow- 
laborers, that he was a "husher." This was given 
by Berry R. Sulgrove as a possible origin of the word. 

Bartlett, in his " Dictionary of Americanisms," says 
that the men of superior strength, the heroes of log- 
rollings and house-raisings, were called "hushers" 
because of their ability to hush or quiet their antago- 
nists; and that "husher" was a common term for a 
bully. The Ohio River boatmen carried the word to 
New Orleans, where a foreigner among them, in at- 
tempting to apply the word to himself, pronounced it 
"Hoosier." 



12 The Naming of Indiana 12 

A lyouisville baker named Hoosier made a variety 
of sweet bread that was so much enjoyed by Indiana 
people that they were called " Hoosier's customers," 
" Hoosier' s men," and so on. Rev. T. A. Goodwin 
says he first heard the word at Cincinnati in 1830, 
where it described a species of gingerbread, but with- 
out reference to Indiana. 

Rev. Aaron Wood, a pioneer Methodist minister, 
whom the writer of this paper well remembers, says 
the word is a corruption of Hussar, the corruption 
originating about as follows : ' ' When the young men 
of the Indiana side of the Ohio crossed over to Louis- 
ville, the Kentuckians made sport of them, calling 
them " New Purchase Greenies," and boasted of their 
own superiority. Fighting grew out of these boasts, 
and an Indianian who had a great admiration for the 
prowess of the soldiers called Hussars, whipped one 
of the Kentuckians, and, bending over him, cried, 
" I 'm a Hoosier," meaning " I 'm a Hussar." 

But, to my mind, the most probable explanation is 
that the word is a corruption of " Who's here?" In 
my childhood, in the back woods of Randolph county, 
I often heard the response, "Who's here?" to the 
rap on the door late at night, after the "latch string" 
had been drawn in. The word here, however, was 
pronounced as if in speaking the word her, the sound 
of y had been inserted between the h and e, making it 
hyer. "Who's hyer," or "Who's yer," as it was 



13 The Naming of Indiana 13 

generally abridged, was a common response to the rap 
of the visitor late at night. " Who's yer " easily took 
the form *' Hoosier." 

The word first appeared in literature, so far as 
known, in 1830, in John Finley's poem, "The Hoosier's 
Nest," written here in this city. It was printed in 
that year as the New Year's address for the Indian- 
apolis Journal. John Finley was a man of more than 
ordinary culture, who came here from Virginia in 
1823 ; he was at one time Mayor of Richmond, and 
was the father of Mrs. Wrigley, the accomplished 
librarian of the Morrisson L^ibrary, from its opening 
until January, 1903. 

Since the poem referred to is a Wayne county 
product, and as it first gave the word "Hoosier" a 
place in literature, the greater part of it is introduced 
here as a fitting conclusion to this paper. 



THE HOOSIER'S NEST. 

Blest Indiana! in thy soil 
Are found the sure rewards of toil. 
Where honest poverty and worth 
May make a Paradise on earth. 
With feelings proud we contemplate 
The rising glory of our State ; 
Nor take offense by application 
Of its good-natured appellation. 
Our hardy yeomanry can smile 
At tourists of "the sea-girt isle," 



14 The Naming of Indiana 14 

Or wits who travel at the gallop, 

Like Basil Hall or Mrs. Trollope. 

'Tis true, among the crowds that roam 

To seek for fortune or a home. 

It happens that we often find 

Empiricism of every kind. 

A strutting fop, who boasts of knowledge. 

Acquired at some far Eastern college. 

Expects to take us by surprise. 

And dazzle our astonished eyes. 

He boasts of learning, skill and talents 

Which, in the scale, would Andes balance ; 

Cuts widening swaths from day to day. 

And in a month he runs away. 

Not thus the honest son of toil. 

Who settles here to till the soil. 

And with intentions just and good, 

Acquires an ample livelihood : 

He is (and not the little-great) 

The bone and sinew of the State. 

With six-horse team to one-horse cart. 

We hail them here from every part ; 

And some you'll see, sans shoes or socks on. 

With snake-pole and a yoke of oxen ; 

Others with pack-horse, dog, and rifle. 

Make emigration quite a trifle. 

The emigrant is soon located — 

In Hoosier life initiated ; 

Erects a cabin in the woods. 

Wherein he stows his household goods. 

At first, round logs and clapboard roof. 

With puncheon floor, quite carpet-proof. 

And paper windows oiled and neat. 

His edifice is then complete. 

When four clay balls, in form of plummet. 

Adorns his wooden chimney's summit. 

Ensconced in this, let those who can 

Find out a truly happier man. 



15 The Naming of Indiana 15 

The little youngsters rise around him 

So numerous, they quite astound him ; 

Each with an ax or wheel in hand. 

And instinct to subdue the land. 

Erelong the cabin disappears, 

A spacious mansion next he rears ; 

His fields seem widening by stealth. 

An index of increasing wealth ; 

And when the hives of Hoosiers swarm. 

To each is given a noble faun. 

These are the seedlings of the State, 

The stamina to make the great. 

'Tis true, her population, various. 

Find avocations multifarious ; 

But having said so much, 'twould seem 

No derogation to my theme. 

Were I to circumscribe the space. 

To picture but a single case ; 

And if my muse be not seraphic, 

I trust you'll find her somewhat graphic. 

I 'm told, in riding somewhere West, 
A stranger found a Hoosier'' s nest — 
In other words, a buckey cabin. 
Just big enough to hold Queen Mab in ; 
Its situation, low, but airy. 
Was on the borders of a prairie ; 
And fearing he might be benighted. 
He hailed the house, and then alighted. 
The Hoosier met him at the door — 
Their salutations soon were o'er. 
He took the stranger's horse aside. 
And to a sturdy sapling tied ; 
Then having stripped the saddle off. 
He fed him in a sugar-trough. 
The stranger stooped to enter in — 
The entrance closing with a pin — 
And manifested strong desire 
To seat him by the log-heap fire. 



1 6 The Nammg of Indiana i6 

Where half-a-dozen Hoosieroons, 

With mush-and-milk, tin-cups and spoons, 

White heads, bare feet, and dirty faces. 

Seemed much inclined to keep their places. 

But madam, anxious to display 

Her rough but undisputed sway. 

Her offspring to the ladder led. 

And cuffed the youngsters up to bed. 

Invited shortly to partake 

Of venison, milk, -ix^A johnny cake. 

The stranger made a hearty meal. 

And glances round the room would steal. 

One side was lined with divers garments. 

The other spread with skins of varmints ; 

Dried pumpkins overhead were strung. 

Where venison hams in plenty hung ; 

Two rifles placed above the door — 

Three dogs lay stretched upon the floor ; 

In short, the domicile was rife 

With specimens of Hoosier life. 

The host, who centred his affections 

On game, and range, and quarter sections. 

Discoursed his weary guest for hours. 

Till Somnus' all-composing powers 

Of sublunary cares bereft 'em ; 

And then — 

No matter how the story ended ; 

The application I intended 

Is from the famous Scottish poet. 

Who seemed to feel as well as know it. 

That "buirdly cheils and clever hizzies 

Are bred in sic' a way as this is." 



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